


Four Times Phryne Gave the Baby Back (And One Time She Didn't)

by QuailiTea



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Babies, F/M, Gen, Nursing, Pregnancy, Toddlers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuailiTea/pseuds/QuailiTea
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin. No, Phryne doesn't get pregnant.





	Four Times Phryne Gave the Baby Back (And One Time She Didn't)

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the absence, folks. I just had a baby, so I wrote baby fic. Enjoy!

“Come here my little man,” cried Aunt Prudence happily.

“Yes, here, do go to your Auntie Pru,” said Phryne, equally happily. She passed Mary’s little boy back with alacrity. The child gave a final athletic wriggle and settled comfortably into her aunt’s arms, gnawing on a corner of his sodden blanket. “Why are my gloves damp?” She glowered suspiciously at the tyke, who merely nodded his absurdly large head and bit down harder on the blanket.

“It’s teething Phryne, don’t you know anything about children? Honestly my dear girl, you were a nurse,” Prudence huffed. She could not fathom a woman with less maternal instinct than her niece. She tickled under William’s chin so she could see the single pearly incisor erupting from his gums and was rewarded with a chuckle.

“I was a war nurse, Aunt Prudence. There weren’t a lot of children, which was something to be thankful for,” Phryne replied. She peeled her glove off and gave it a disgusted shake. Babies.

\---

“I have done my duty as a wife,” Camellia said, relief writ large on her face. “Now, no matter what else Grandmother Lin might say, she cannot get rid of me. He will be an excellent heir for Lin, and now they will all leave me alone.” She leaned back in her bed and a mischievous smile broke through her exhaustion. “Except for my husband, of course.” Phryne nodded, looking down at the sleeping infant in her arms. His little fists clenched and unclenched, and she watched his mouth move sleepily into a suckling pout. Infants were so tiny. So very fragile. This one was squashed and wrinkly, with a faint dusting of black hair on the very top of his head, a curious powdery smell, and eyes just like Lin’s. Vaguely, she wondered what a baby made from her and Lin’s escapades would have looked like, and just as quickly, shook her head. At that, Lin (Robert) Jian twisted, fixing Phryne with a dark-eyed stare.

“I think he’s awake,” she said hesitantly. “Do you want him?”

“Yes, give him here,” Camellia said. “I’ll try to feed him again. Thank you, Phryne, for coming to visit. I haven’t had much company.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Happy to.” She nestled the little silk-swaddled bundle in next to his mother and bowed her way out. Babies made her nervous.

\---

The gunfire had stopped. Cautiously, Phryne poked her head around the crates where she’d taken shelter with little Rose, ready to throw herself back over the toddler if one of Marshall’s men came into view. But nobody appeared, and she dragged herself to her feet. Rose clung to her with a grip like a monkey, her little face buried in Phryne’s fox-fur collar. From somewhere near her ear, she heard the little girl mutter something.

“Rose, are you all right?” Instantly, she felt idiotic. Of course she couldn’t answer – babies couldn’t talk. She set Rose on a box and began tentatively inspecting her, checking her wiry limbs for cuts, bruises or worse. The toddler submitted with a sober pliancy, the tears that Miss Fisher had expected not making an appearance. Instead, she held out one foot, bare of its tiny sandal.

“Shoooooes,” the girl crooned.

“Er, yes,” Phryne replied, disconcerted. “Your shoe is missing.”

“Shoes?”

“Where is it,” Miss Fisher asked to nobody in particular. “It can’t have gone far.” The tiny girl stared for a long moment, then wiggled down off the box.

“Shooooooes? Shoooooes?” It sounded like she was calling for her footwear the way one would call for a dog. Then, with an inquisitive head-tilt like a bird and a shake of her corn-silk hair, Rose pounced on the little brown sandal that had been dropped in the confusion. “Shoes! Shoes!” She held out her bare foot again, but toppled over, unable to keep her balance.

“Rose?” A woman’s voice echoed into the room where Miss Fisher was, and without thinking, she pushed the girl behind her before answering. But Rose was not to be denied.

“Mama! Mamamamamama….. shooooooes.” A woman raced around the corner, her hair markedly darker than the little girl’s, but their faces similar enough to make her identity certain.

“Rose, oh thank God,” the woman said, her voice cracking with tears. She swept around Phryne and scooped up her little girl, burying her face in the fair curls.

“Mama! Shoes mama, shoes.” Phryne smiled.

“I admire a girl who keeps her priorities in order,” she said. She knelt and gently redid the straps of the sandal on the child’s foot, to Rose’s utter delight. “Single-mindedness will come in handy later, I promise.” She patted her gingerly and withdrew to let the mother examine her child. Babies were not to be interfered with when the mother was around, she did know that much.

\---

“Your Miss Fisher was a bit rude now, wasn’t she,” Lola said to her sister, hefting Dot’s new baby rather abruptly into her arms. “What’s wrong with her, that she doesn’t even want to hold the little fellow?”

“Miss Fisher isn’t one much for children,” Dot replied tiredly. She shifted against the pillows of the sofa so she could rest her arms while she cradled the baby. Lola had been a great help during the birth, but fifteen days out, Dot had moved from gratefulness, to exhausted annoyance, and was now in a state of Good Christian tolerance that was not going to withstand a whole lot more helping. She wanted her sister to go home and leave her, Hugh and the children to their own devices, even if that did mean doing the cleaning herself.

“But what’s wrong with her,” Lola persisted. “She needs an heir, I’m sure. And she’s rich enough she probably doesn’t need to worry about the shame if she doesn’t quite have the husband. And she can hire out for the unpleasant parts. I know enough girls and then some who would love to do the nannying.” Dot shook her head and shifted the baby so she could smell his fuzzy little head while he was still clean and not screaming.

“I’m sure it’s not about the money,” she said.

“But what then?” Lola shook her head. “She all but dropped him when he started to cry – surely she’s not afraid of a newborn?”

“I think it’s more what babies represent,” Dot said. She was feeling muddled and philosophical and happy and frustrated and tired all at once, but she struggled to make her point all the same.

“Wot, he’s a symbol now?” Lola laughed.

“No,” Dot persisted. She fought back a yawn and continued. “Being pregnant, becoming a Mum, it takes you apart. It’s a long process of being put back together again after nine months of all that. And you aren’t put back together the same, not ever again. And Miss Fisher, she’s spent a long time making herself.” Lola tsked, but Dot pressed on. “She spent a long time putting herself together exactly as she pleases – the war and her sister and the detecting and all that. I don’t think she wants to take it all apart again.” She resettled the baby in her arms and sighed. “Babies are sweet, but they are a lot of work in a lot of ways. And I think she knows that.” As Dot spoke, the boy began to squeal, and a distinct smell filled the air. “Oh Thomas, not again.”

Lola looked at her sister, pensive, as Dot struggled up to get a new nappy. “She could just hire someone. I know lots of girls.”

“Yes,” Dot said, refraining from throwing a candlestick. “Yes, I suppose she could. And children do get easier once they learn to talk, though she doesn’t believe me on that point.” She flipped Thomas gently onto his blanket and began to change him. “Could you, Lola?” She held out the nappy, and Lola startled before taking it between two fingers, a disgusted look on her face.

“Oh, right,” her sister said. “D’you think she could hire someone for you? I do need to get back to work soon.” Dot didn’t even bother to hide her smile. Babies could be useful that way.

\---

Jack’s key in the lock went unheard. It was already beginning to grow late, but he’d at least made it back before dawn came back around again. Quietly, Jack slipped into Wardlow and hung his coat on the peg that had become his without anyone ever quite acknowledging it. He assumed everyone would be asleep – it had been a late night; even later with Collins out of town with his wife. But as he climbed the stairs, he was surprised to hear the low murmur of a voice and see the glow of a light from the far end of the hall. His curiosity piqued, he turned down the hall to the room where the light was streaming from. Phryne was settled into a chair with her back to the door, her black hair just visible over the top of the amber woodwork. She was reading or reciting to a small lump in the trundle bed – Collins’ eldest, a boy of three. Her voice was low, and the cadence was soft and rhythmic, but as he drew closer, he realized she was most definitely not reading fairy stories to little Andrew.

“Repeated use of infusion of juniper may prove injurious to the kidneys, as well as interfering with the absorption of iron in the bloodstream, to the effect of triggering anemia… oh, hello Jack.”

“Not King Arthur stories then?” he said, a wry twist to his lips. He crept forward and drew the coverlet over the little boy, who sighed and wedged the leg of his stuffed lamb more firmly into his mouth.

“I ran out of fairy tales,” she shrugged. “ _Herbes Naturales_ was closest to hand. And a knowledge of poisons might prove useful for him later.” Quietly, they backed from the room, but Jack noticed that she didn’t pull the door shut, on the chance the boy was afraid of the dark.

“I’m not entirely sure Mrs. Collins would agree.”

“Possibly not,” she replied, after a moment’s thought. “But Aunt P isn’t feeling well, so I was obliged to take up the post of nursemaid for the night.”

“Does that mean you’ll want me to stay elsewhere?” He made a mild show of re-donning his suit coat and she swatted him on the arm with the book before herding him towards her bed.

“I’m sure he’ll sleep through. We’ll save anything truly… corrupt for later.” Her voice was sinful enough that Jack, to his later regret, did not follow the more sensible impulses of his brain and simply go to sleep.

***

As he descended towards the dining room for breakfast the following morning, Jack was halted on the stairs by the sound of Andrew’s voice, high and clear as only a small child asking an uncomfortable question can be.

“Papa? Why doesn’t your dinger stand up like the Inspector’s does? Is that why he’s the boss, because his dinger is bigger? Is his the biggest dinger of everybody's in the station?” The silence from the room was incredible. It was a silence that inflated, with the texture of a thoroughly overcooked bowl of oats. It flowed out of the dining room and seemed to fill the entire front of the house. They had bet, wrongly, it seemed, on Andrew's sleeping, and Phryne's commentary during their nightly activities had obviously been overheard. Jack felt himself immobilized, stuck in the thoroughly devastating silence, until it was, remarkably, broken by a laugh from Phryne, bright as a bell. Jack drew a breath and rounded the corner into the room, to confront the sight of three mortified adults (Prudence, Collins, and Mrs. Collins), two trying not to laugh (Jane and Mr. Butler), and a thoroughly amused Miss Fisher, toast still suspended midway to her lips, eyes crushed shut with laughter.

“You know what, Dot, you were right, they do get more interesting once they can talk,” she choked out at last. There was a clatter of silverware and a small “Whoops!” as the little boy fell off his chair and into Phryne’s lap with a giggle and a grin. “I’ve changed my mind,” she continued, wrapping her arms around Andrew in a genial hug, “I’m keeping him.”


End file.
